Eliphas Levi ~ Magic, Mysteries & Man

Noting that transiting Neptune is still closely conjunct my natal Jupiter in Pisces, I decided I should be writing about something, or someone, mystical and magical. How about Eliphas Levi? I didn't find any natal chart for him online - I should remedy that, at least!

Who was he then?

His birth name was Alphonse Louis Constant - but he is better known by his pseudonym Eliphas Levi. He was born on February 8, 1810, in Paris, son of a shoemaker. He died in Paris on 31 May 1875. He studied for the priesthood before becoming a writer, mystic, magician, and prominent name in that foggy realm . He had links to various characters of his time, famous within their own circles: socialist and feminist Flora Tristan; fellow mystic M. Ganneau, "messianic mathematician" Jozef Maria Hoëhne-Wronski; British novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton; and French sculptress Marie-Noémi Cadiot. He married Cadiot in 1846. He wrote two books on the magical arts, they were later combined and translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite in 1896 and titled Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual. Several more books followed, and in the prevailing atmosphere of the times were well received.

Wikipedia indicates that it was Levi who incorporated the Tarot into contemporary practice. He influenced other mystics and magicians of his time and later on, including Aleister Crowley. He was also originator of a famous "Sabbatic Goat" image and the idea that a pentagram pointing upwards represents good, while one pointing downwards represents evil. See HERE.

Natal chart of Eliphas Levi, Paris, France on 8 February 1810; it's set for 12 noon as no time of birth is available.

First thing I noticed was that Levi had no planet in an Earth sign (we can't know whether his rising sign was in Earth without a birth time). The possible absence of Earth translates to a lack of any "feet on the ground" feel in his nature; no small voice at the back of his mind whispering : "but are you sure that's not pure imagination and fantasy?" Manly P. Hall, another mystical character, born some 90 years later, did have a solid Capricorn anchor to his chart, along with a comparable mix of Aquarius and Pisces to that of Levi. I suppose good helpings of Aquarius and Pisces could be considered as "usual suspects" when considering magically mysterious characters: Aquarius' inquiring Airy mind mixed with Pisces' deep, dreamy creativity.

Levi had Neptune conjunct Saturn, so Pisces modern ruler was conjoined with his Aquarius Sun's traditional ruler! He also had his Sun's modern ruler Uranus in Pluto-ruled Scorpio, in harmonious trine to his Pluto/Mars conjunction in Pisces. This might be a pointer to his draw towards "the dark side".

Aries Moon doesn't strike quite the right note. Moon would have been in Aries, whatever Levi's time of birth. Moon could well have been conjunct Jupiter though; Jupiter relates to religion and philosophy - maybe a reflection of his early training for the priesthood? Another reflection of that can be seen in his Sagittarius (ruled by Jupiter) conjunction of Saturn/Neptune.


The illustration which led me to write this post appears in an old book of mine; to save scanning the image from the book I found a version of the illustration on line, this one in colour. My book states that the drawing was produced for Manly P. Hall, astrologer and metaphysician (see my post on him and his natal chart HERE)

 The Grand Man of the Zohar

Text beneath the black and white illustration my book, Best of the Illustrated National Astrological Journal 1933-35

Eliphas Levi thus describes the Great Prototypal Man: “That synthesis of the word, formulated by the human figure, ascended slowly and emerged from the water, like the sun in its rising. When the eyes appeared, light was made; when the mouth was manifested, there was the creation of spirits and the word passed into expression. The entire head was revealed, and this completed the first day of creation. The shoulders, the arms, the breast arose, and thereupon work began. With one hand the Divine Image put back the sea, while with the other it raised up continents and mountains. The Image grew and grew; the generative organs appeared, and all beings began to increase and multiply. The form stood at length erect, having one foot upon the earth and one upon the waters. Beholding itself at full length in the ocean of creation, it breathed on its own reflection and called its likeness into life. It said: Let us make man—and thus man was made. There is nothing so beautiful in the masterpiece of any poet as this vision of creation accomplished by the prototype of humanity. Hereby is man but the shadow of a shadow, and yet he is the image of divine power. He also can stretch forth his hands from East to West; to him is the earth given as a dominion. Such is Adam Kadmon, the primordial Adam of the Kabalists. Such is the sense in which he is depicted as a giant; and this is why Swedenborg, haunted in his dreams by reminiscences of the Kabalah, says that entire creation is only a titanic man and that we are made in the image of the universe.” (From The History of Magic)

And from HERE:

The symbol of Primordial Man, the first being to emerge with the creation of the cosmos is common to a number of religious and philosophical traditions. The Upanishads describe a primal man composed of the very elements which were to become the world. According to the Upanishads this "gigantic divine being" is both infinitely far and deposited near the innermost recesses of the human heart. Indeed, in the Hindu tradition, the Primordial Man is identified both with the entire Universe and the soul or essence of all things.

Interestingly, a similar image is found in Plutarch who relates that the entirety of the heavens is arranged in the form of a macroanthropos, a colossal human being who is conceived as a model for the human world. For Plutarch, the sun is at the heart of this being and the moon, the sun¹s androgynous messenger, is located in between the heart and belly.

The Primordial Man is also an important symbol in Gnosticism. The Gnostics inferred from the verse in Genesis "Let us make man in our own image" that the first earthly man was created on the model of a cosmic Adam on high.

I rather fancy an idea that, originally, before the Big Bang, there was one ginormous humanoid creature who disseminated - either accidentally or on purpose - to become us and our universe. Well...it's as believable as anything else on offer!

Another Side of Neptune in Pisces

Four individuals listed below were born between 1849 and 1861 (when Neptune was last transiting Pisces) with Neptune close to their ascendant degree. It's not hard to spot similarities in their chosen life paths is it?

My software wasn't too helpful with French place names, I had to find the nearest town to some birth places, but charts as shown will be accurate enough for the purpose of discovering prominent Neptune in Pisces. Data came from either astro.com or astrotheme.

Anthelme Nizier Philippe, also known as "Maître Philippe" or "Maître Philippe de Lyon" born on April 25, 1849 in Le Rubathier, Loisieux, Savoy, France, son of a peasant couple. He gained a reputation as a healer by the age of thirteen. He married Jeanne Julie Landar (1859–1939)in 1877, had a daughter, Jeanne Marie Victoire born on 11 November 1878. She died on 29 August 1904 aged 25. He refused to heal her, saying that it was Heaven's wish that she should go on ahead, and predicted the precise course of her illness and death. "This death," he said, "has for me been a living crucifixion."

He soon gained a reputation as a miracle worker amongst Paris occultists. Having been harassed for practicing medicine without a license, he went to St Petersburg where he was awarded his Doctor's Diploma in recognition of extraordinary feats of remote healing conducted in St Petersburg.

Charles Lancelin, born January 4, 1852 in Dreux, died in 1941, was a French physician and occultist who was an early experimenter in the field of astral projection, also known as out-ofthe-body travel. He published a number of important books in the active period of French interest in occultism that preceded World War II.

Thomas H. Burgoyne, an astrologer and founder of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, was born April 14, 1855. Spontaneously psychic, he claimed that as a child he came into contact with the Brotherhood of Light, a group of discarnate, advanced beings who attempt to guide the destiny of humankind. Today that group continues as the Church of Light. At a later date he met a M. Theon, purported to be an earthly representative of the brotherhood who taught Burgoyne about the Brotherhood.Burgoyne moved to the United States around 1880 and soon afterward his writings began to appear in various periodicals.

Victor Stanislas de Guaita, born on 6 April 1861 at 07:00 AM , Chateau de Alteville, France.

French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism and European mysticism, and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order, celebrated and successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with other people who were involved with occultism and magic. Occultism and magic formed a part of his novels. His main work was "The Key to Black Magic."

SOLSTICE & A Look at Lewis Spence

I've posted this poem at Winter Solstice once before - 5 years ago. I like it a lot, so here it is once more:

Toward the Winter Solstice
by Timothy Steele

Although the roof is just a story high,
It dizzies me a little to look down.
I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights
And cast it to the weeping birch’s crown;
A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook
Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine
The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs
Will accent the tree’s elegant design.

Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause
And call up commendations or critiques.
I make adjustments. Though a potpourri
Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs,
We all are conscious of the time of year;
We all enjoy its colorful displays
And keep some festival that mitigates
The dwindling warmth and compass of the days.

Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule,
But UPS vans now like magi make
Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves
Are gaily resurrected in their wake;
The desert lifts a full moon from the east
And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze,
And valets at chic restaurants will soon
Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs.

And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk
The fan palms scattered all across town stand
More calmly prominent, and this place seems
A vast oasis in the Holy Land.
This house might be a caravansary,
The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead
Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces
And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red.

Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem
Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed;
It’s comforting to look up from this roof
And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost,
To recollect that in antiquity
The winter solstice fell in Capricorn
And that, in the Orion Nebula,
From swirling gas, new stars are being born.

(Find it HERE.)

In a search for something else to add to this Solstice posting I noted a quotation from a book by one Lewis Spence, "British Fairy Origins":

“...some evidence seems to exist that an idea prevailed that in the fairy sphere there is a reversal of the seasons, our winter being their summer. Some such belief seems to have been known to Robert Kirk, for he tells us that 'when we have plenty they [the fairies] have scarcity at their homes.' In respect of the Irish fairies they seem to have changed their residences twice a year: in May, when the ancient Irish "flitted" from their winter houses to summer pastures, and in November, when they quitted these temporary quarters.”

A passing reader might decide this blogger has temporarily slipped "away with the fairies". Not so - well no more than usual anyway. I looked further into the author of that whimsical quote, and his book.

Lewis Spence, ( 1874-1955) a Scot, journalist and fairly prolific author on such fascinating topics as occultism, druidism, the magic arts, Atlantis, mysteries of Mexico, mysteries of Egypt, Scottish folklore, British fairy lore....and much more. Some of his work is still in print but much is now forgotten, although many recent authors have likely used his work for reference, inspiration or as a spring board.

A couple more fairy-related quotes from his book British Fairy Origins

“In my view the study of fairy origins assumes a greater degree of importance than popular opinion is wont to concede to it. Indeed, the ideas associated with it strike at the very roots of human belief and primitive methods of reasoning. It is scarcely to be questioned that the explanation of fairy origins is of the utmost value to the better comprehension of primitive religion. Later it will be made clear that, for the writer at least, the whole tradition of Faerie reveals quite numerous and excellent proofs of its former existence as a primitive and separate cult and faith, more particularly as regards its appearance and tradition in these islands.”

Another ....

“But this is not to say that a highly specialized body of belief such as that associated with Faerie is not capable of subsidiary explanations apart from this very general conclusion, specially in connection with those later and accretive ideas which must have grown up around it. Admittedly there is a common basis for the origin of all beliefs associated with the origin of spirits, which is to be found alone in the doctrine of animism. This notwithstanding, and with all due respect to the warnings of Krappe, Hartland, and others concerning the risks accruing to the scientific classification of spiritual forms, certain types of spirits with markedly separate characteristics have assuredly been conceived, and have been given diverse denominations and descriptions by those who believed in their existence. Of this the fairy type is indeed a case in point; and however correct it may be to say that it cannot basically be separated from the ghost, the goblin, or the demon, it has, in the course of ages, assumed characteristics which in a secondary sense distinguish it sufficiently from all of these to permit the scientific observer, and to some extent the peasant or the savage, to rank it as a separate variety of spirit, if not as a distinct species.”
― Lewis Spence, British Fairy Origins

More information and illustration of some of his book covers can be found at Controversial.com here.


His natal chart with data from Astrotheme:

Early Sagittarius Sun with Moon in Gemini and Libra rising, in a chart capable of multiple patterns: oppositions, trines, sextiles, sufficient to form what my software calls a Seer Geocentric pattern, made up of Grand Trine (3 harmonious 120* aspects), two oppositions (180*)
four sextiles (60*) all tightly or in some cases a little more loosely linked. I have one of these in my own chart but have never been able to find out exactly what it signifies other than a chart with lots of links, most fairly positive in interpretation. Astrologers would interpret this pattern as, I guess, a mix of the interpretations of two patterns contained within the "Seer": Grand Trine and Mystic Rectangle.

In Mr Spence's case the planets involved are: Venus, Jupiter, Uranus, Moon and Neptune. The artistry in his writing (Venus in Sagittarius) is well-linked and in more than one way, to Jupiter (ruler of Sagittarius) for philosophical ideas and the spread of his writings; Uranus, his interest in "out of the ordinary" subjects - thought by some to be somewhat eccentric; Moon in Gemini: Moon his inner self; Gemini from whence the inspiration to write arises; and Neptune - his creative imagination. Many harmonious links are involved, held together by a couple of oppostions: Jupiter/Neptune and Venus/Moon which, rather than opposing in the usual sense, might more positively be seen as offering a balancing effect.

His natal Sun in Sagittarius doesn't form part of the "Seer" formation, but tunes him into the general feel of "harmony" through sign and element.

Saturn at 9 Aquarius opposes Uranus at 15 Leo - the two rulers of Aquarius, one balancing the other - a tricky job indeed: new thought attempting balance with the old and well-established is one way to put it. In Mr Spence's case, though, he was actually making the truly old become new again: ancient beliefs polished up and brought to the fore.